


wonderful tonight

by sinagtala (strikinglight)



Series: acts of intimacy [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Christmas Eve, F/M, Friendship/Love, also readable as post-canon I guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 00:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11978061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala
Summary: Meeting her mom last spring vacation had been a Big Deal, as is helping Hitoka put on a necklace on Christmas Eve. As everything about her is a Big Deal, even if he knows better than to actually say it, because saying it would freak them both out. Probably. Maybe.





	wonderful tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by Ny. Prompt: one character adjusting the other's jewelry/necktie/etc.
> 
> Title from the eponymous Eric Clapton song, which I had on repeat while writing this.

“A little help?” she asks.

They’re face to face in Hitoka’s room, only Tetsurou’s eyes are on everything but—the notebooks on her desk, her wrinkled quilt, the stuffed rabbit that’s slipped sideways off the pillows and onto the floor.  It’s harder than he’d initially imagined, this business of casually pretending he’s not struggling to look at her face. He knows that if he looks too long at her face he won’t want to look at any other thing for the rest of the evening, and that might pose a good few problems considering the next thing they need to do once they leave here is find their way to a restaurant neither of them have ever eaten at, the kind of fancy place you need to call in a reservation for. And it had been snowing when he entered her building, in big feathery flakes, which might mean slippery roads—which might mean possibly slipping and dying if you don’t look where you’re going, which—

He’s spacing out. He knows he’s spacing out. So he calls himself back, just in time, as her palm opens like a flower toward him, and he sees the color before anything else.

“Gold,” he remarks, bending his head down to appraise with the solemn attention such a precious thing deserves—the delicate chain, the filigree spiraling into the shape of a rose. He doesn’t say _like your hair._ “Very pretty. Is it new?”

By which he thinks he might really mean, _Did you get it just for me?_ But that’s too much, for them, even as a joke, and even he knows there are some things you just don’t joke about.

“It was my mom’s,” she says. “She gave it to me before I left home, to wear on special occasions.”

Tetsurou remembers Hitoka’s mom from the quarterly visits and the nightly LINE calls, remembers pearl earrings and meticulously curled hair and suits pressed so sharply they could cut a man’s throat, remembers the sly, secret way she’d smiled when Hitoka had introduced her as _my friend Kuroo-san, the one who showed me around on my first day_. He remembers shaking her hand, silently praying to all the spirits that she wouldn’t feel his heart hammering in the center of his palm, that she wouldn’t assess the strength of his grip and find it limp and wanting, especially for a young man from the city, how embarrassing.

Meeting her mom last spring vacation had been a Big Deal, as is helping Hitoka put on a necklace on Christmas Eve. As everything about her is a Big Deal, even if he knows better than to actually say it, because saying it would freak them both out. Probably. Maybe. He has to admit he isn’t really sure.

He can only do what he does best; he’s Kuroo Tetsurou, who jokes and teases and messes around when he’s out of his depth. So he still can’t help lifting an eyebrow as he asks her if this counts as a special occasion—a totally regular dinner, just like they do all the time, just because they’re bored and have no other plans—and laughs when she pushes at his shoulder with her free hand.

“It’s not because of you, if that’s what you’re thinking!”

“Oh, really?”

He’s still laughing when he takes the necklace from her hand and crosses around to stand behind her. Coming closer he sees that she’s got lipstick on, and that black stuff you put on your eyelashes, and the last of it stutters in his throat.

Tetsurou wonders if he should have put on a tie. Maybe brought flowers. Immediately he shoots himself down—that would have been too much, for them. His hands themselves already feel like too much, big and blunt and clumsy as they maneuver the chain around her neck, fumble with the clasp once, and then once again before the lock finally finds the ring and latches closed as it should.

“Gotcha,” he says, and pats her shoulders for good measure. As he steps out from behind her he sends up a prayer that she won’t ask him _how do I look?—_ because of course the answer would be nothing less than _fucking wonderful,_ and that, too, would be too much from _my friend Kuroo-san._

But she doesn’t ask, is the thing. She doesn’t ask if it looks good or if it’s too much. Maybe she doesn’t need to, because she already has an answer she’s happy with, and that’s one thing, another item on a steadily lengthening list of things she doesn’t need him for.

This is already her second Christmas in the city. Tetsurou wonders sometimes if she sees how quickly she’s outgrowing her questions, how she’s gone from not being able to tell the streets apart to tugging him around the next corner, so excited she doesn’t stutter. Hitoka, too, is blooming like a rose of gold, and he doesn’t have to tell her. He doesn’t have to tell her _the city looks good on you,_ or _you’re so brave now,_ even if he could say all those things and mean them, and more—but maybe he’d still mean nothing more than _I’m so glad to be your friend._

“Thanks!” She beams. Right away he feels warm, like a little sun has lit up in the pit of his stomach _._ “You hungry?”

There’s no such thing as _just friends_ with Hitoka. Friends are a Big Deal. Hitoka herself is the Biggest Deal, on Christmas Eve or any other day.

“Starving,” he assures her, and offers his arm with a grin.


End file.
